The Second Republic has a substantial capital development budget, amounting to the second largest item on the national Budget after staff costs, and most of that is being spent on infrastructure -- dams, roads, bridges, schools and hospitals.
But as President Mnangagwa stressed last week when he recommissioned the rebuilt Holy Cross Dam in Chirumhanzu, a dam is just a long wall of concrete or earth and rock, with a spillway, and is not much use until people start using the lake it impounds to make a living, or open a business or generally increase the incomes and standard of living of their community.
Much the same applies to the rest of the infrastructure the Government has built and is building: it is just a herd of white elephants until it is used and used properly and Zimbabwe does not need white elephants.
It also happens to be good economics. Tax money is used to fund much of our infrastructure and once sanctions are lifted we should also be able to borrow low-interest development funds to accelerate the development. But taxpayers want value for their tax money, and development institutions want to be repaid.
But once a new capital development is being used properly, to benefit a community, standards of living rise, that is new wealth is being created, and via the wide gamut of taxes and fees and licences the Government takes a share.
The country is run on around 22 percent of gross national product at the moment, a fairly low percentage, but fairly spread so no one is hammered, but almost everyone one way or the other contributes to.
That in turn means that as the country as a whole gets richer, there is more money each year to pay for the services that people need and want, and more money each year to build up the capital assets that in turn will allow wealth to grow even faster. It is one of those positive feedback loops that economists like.
President Mnangagwa tied in this need for community development, and for communities to find the best uses for new infrastructure such as a dam, with another of his policies, the fact that State Universities are now required under the heritage-based Education 5.0 model to work with communities to help solve their problems and find innovative ways to increase the value of their assets and the incomes.
Again there is a multiple benefit. For a start there is a direct return on some of the large sums of money the budget finds each year to fund the universities and polytechnics. Far more importantly there is a continuous flow of graduates who can do more than read a textbook and pass exams.
Those are just starting points, the real purpose of an education is to be able to do something with what has been learnt, and that practical use of knowledge is why the education system was broadened from Education 3.0, which is the theoretical knowledge, to Education 5.0 where we include innovation and practical use. Theory is still needed, but like the concrete in a dam wall, its main purpose is to be of use.
Holy Cross Dam is a good example of what the President means, which is why he was stressing the point at a successful occasion. The dam was originally built in colonial times by the Catholic Church as part of a mission station complex.
It was breached during a cyclone in 2007, but after some years of inactivity the Second Republic came on board after the case was put by the community via their Member of Parliament, a fairly successful use of democracy.
But the reconstruction was not just filling the gap and generally upgrading the dam. Three universities were brought in, led by Midlands State University, the provincial university, along with specialist aid from Chinhoyi University of Technology and Great Zimbabwe University plus practical support from Masvingo Polytechnic. Chirumanzu is on the Midlands-Masvingo border so the mix of support makes sense.
Already the community is winning. The mission station, as the Bishop of Gweru as able to note, can resume all its functions including the educational, and the bishop thanked the Government for that.
At the same time an irrigation scheme of 200ha, 180ha of crops and 20ha or horticulture, is being activated, supporting 800 households in an area where irrigation makes a big difference.
But a fishery is being established on the lake, another source of food, wealth and employment, and a holiday camp for tourism is being added, again another thread in the creation of community income.
But the irrigation and the fishing are also meant to be creating the raw materials that local rural industries can use.
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This local processing needs to be built up into high value goods. In some parts of the world, and some rural areas of Europe are especially good at this, there is a close tie between farmers and those who process their crops, often within the same community.
The right materials are supplied by the farmers for the processors to make the highest value products, and everyone wins.
But this requires everyone cooperating to build up the innovation and technical processes to get the top value. And quite often a lot of innovative technical input is required.
After all it took imagination, a wide range of technical innovation including double fermentation and a unique method to remove sediments, plus better glass to make stronger bottles, to turn what were thought to be low-value wines of France's Champagne district into a high-priced largely exported product.
There is no reason why Zimbabweans working together, in this case farmers and the universities, cannot figure out completely new products that will produce real value for a community.
